Cartierville Airport

The closure was driven by economic and urban development reasons. As the city of Montreal expanded, the airport became surrounded by residential suburbs. The land became extremely valuable for real estate. Bombardier Aerospace, which owned the airport, made a strategic business decision to cease operations and sell the large, prime tract of land for a major residential development project, capitalizing on its high value.

The airport site has been completely and permanently redeveloped. It is now the location of a large, master-planned residential community called **Bois-Franc** in the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent. The development is characterized by a mix of townhouses, condominiums, and single-family homes, integrated with numerous parks, artificial lakes, and commercial areas. The original runways, taxiways, and hangars have been entirely removed. The only remaining traces of its aviation past are in the names of some local streets, such as Rue de l'Escadrille (Squadron Street), Rue du Challenger, and Place de la Navette (Shuttle Place).

Cartierville Airport holds a major place in Canadian aviation history.

- **Origins and WWII:** It began in the 1920s as a simple flying field. During World War II, it was expropriated by the Canadian government and became a critical hub for aircraft manufacturing. Noorduyn Aviation operated here, building over 2,800 Harvard trainers and the rugged Norseman utility transport aircraft for the Allied war effort.

- **Canadair/Bombardier Era:** After the war, the facility was taken over by Canadair, which later became part of Bombardier Aerospace. The airport served as the primary manufacturing, flight-testing, and delivery center for some of Canada's most iconic aircraft. Key aircraft built and flown from Cartierville include:
- **Canadair North Star:** A post-war airliner used by Trans-Canada Air Lines.
- **Canadair F-86 Sabre:** Thousands of these jet fighters were built under license for the RCAF and other NATO air forces during the Cold War.
- **Canadair CT-114 Tutor:** The jet trainer famously used by the Royal Canadian Air Force's 'Snowbirds' aerobatic team.
- **Canadair CL-215 & CL-415 'SuperScooper':** The world-renowned amphibious water bomber aircraft used for fighting forest fires globally.
- **Bombardier Challenger 600 series:** The business jet that launched Bombardier into the civil aviation market.

In its final decades, the airport (ICAO: CYCV) was a private industrial airfield exclusively for Bombardier's operations and was not open to the public for general or commercial aviation.

There are zero plans or prospects for reopening Cartierville Airport. The land has been fully converted into a high-density urban neighborhood. The original aviation infrastructure is gone, and the area is now a thriving residential community. Re-establishing an airport on this site is physically, economically, and politically impossible.